mala

What is Harvey Nichols? Some English company?

Bewley’s used to be fabulous years ago – three-tier plates heaped with mounds of delicious cream cakes, really good coffee, fabulous service, milk from the shop’s own herd of Jersey cows, yummy lentil soup and brown bread, proper tea made with proper tealeaves, courteous, slightly eccentric staff, Mary Cakes, fascinating and chatty literati, shoppers, musicians, country types up for the day…. and, of course, the beautiful windows, the antique Oriental wallpaper, the fabulous Chinese and Turkish and Indian dishes hung on the walls, the polished pink granite tables, the crockery with little green waves and sheaves of wheat custom printed around the edges…

Then they sold it to Campbells, who immediately moved the tables close together to cram in more people, and slashed the quality of the food. Instead of Bewley’s being a job for life, now it was a place you passed through for a bit in Transition Year or while in college, or while trying to find a good job.

No wonder the cafes plunged into the ground. But the buildings at least should be listed and saved. And surely not some store or bookshop or anodyne mally thing. Surely we think enough of ourselves to have a good cafe in Grafton Street yet?